On April 1, 2014, we closed on the purchase of a run-down house (deemed basically worthless by our appraiser) sitting on 7+ mostly wooded acres situated in a creek bottom.

The house looked like this:

You can get a full tour of what we started with, inside and out, (and a better idea of our appraiser’s mindset) here in one of our very first posts.

But, of course, the appraiser didn’t know that our property also came with this guy—Jake! This photo is from one of our first visits to the house.

Three years later, we’re still hard at work and Jake is still a fixture. These days, the house looks much different, inside and out. But no, we are’t done yet! Still lots to do, and we make progress every day.

Here’s a recent photo of the exterior (its a little bit different than three years ago, but that’s Jake on the front porch):

Just looking at those two photos reminds me of how far we’ve come from that first day! Ben and I could see so much potential where everyone else could only see worthlessness—and they all looked at us like we were crazy. Maybe we are…but we’re still making this place into what we know it can be.

Happy birthday to Cockamamy Farm and to you, too, friends! We hope you’ll stay with us for the coming years and all the projects and Cockamamy goings-on those years bring our way.

Be sure you are following us on Facebook and Instagram @CockamamyFarmer for lots of updates, fun photos of the pups, chickens, garden, and general every day stuff.